


At Ease

by milesofsmiles97



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And they love each other so much, Aziraphale is sort of ambivalent at first just as a warning i guess, Aziraphale knits, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, Post-Apocalypse, but they cook together now!, i definitely made it seem like Crowley could read emotions but provided no explanation or follow-up, there's sex but frankly it's not particularly sexy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-11 01:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20145205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milesofsmiles97/pseuds/milesofsmiles97
Summary: “Angel, may I ask you something that’s perhaps embarrassingly personal?”“Oh Crowley, what could be embarrassing for you to ask me? I mean really, we’ve known each other for six thousand years, I’ll be surprised if it’s not something you already know the answer to. Of course, you may ask me anything.”Crowley did his best to smile, but it was a bit too tight-lipped, and came across as though he had a bad taste in his mouth or a canker sore. He wanted to give up and change the subject but he knew it wouldn’t work.“Aziraphale, why aren’t you in love with me?”





	At Ease

**Author's Note:**

> This includes the first sex scenes I have ever written, and I don't know how I feel about any of it so I'm genuinely open to criticism. I feel like my personal hangups are on full display, but hopefully it doesn't feel ooc. I hope you enjoy!

It was maybe ten p.m., dark but not the middle of the night. Aziraphale and Crowley were in Aziraphale’s bookshop looking out the window, no longer drunk from dinner and too lazy to get up to get more wine. Each were independently thinking to themselves how grateful they were to be able to look out the window of the bookshop, which still existed, at London, which still existed. For Crowley, this was tinged with a certain amount of guilty sorrow. Maybe he had been daft to think that, after their respective encounters with Heaven and Hell, Aziraphale would have had the same revelation about their relationship that he had come to some time in the earlier half of the last millennium, but he still had thought it. It had certainly seemed like an appropriate moment: a weight off their backs, a measure of freedom they had never experienced in their lives, and enough of a scare to jostle out that kind of confession. But it had been over a month, and no such luck. Perhaps he noticed a slight relaxation in gesture, an end to talking about what Upstairs would like, the pointed remarks about Crowley being a demon softened into friendly ribbing. But no proof that Aziraphale loved Crowley more than he loved any other feature of his everyday life. Crowley was happy to take what he could get because he couldn’t imagine his life any other way. All the same, there was no denying that it stung to know he was in the same league as a favored bench in the park or a hot cup of tea.

Aziraphale could sense that something was off with Crowley, but not what was off, and it was bothering him. He had thought that the evening had been great. They had cooked upstairs in his flat, just tomato soup but it had tasted amazing, perhaps because they had paired it with too much red wine and lots of crusty bread from down the street. In the past, neither of them had really cooked much; Aziraphale had usually preferred to dine out in times and places when that was normal, and Crowley didn’t eat much at all. But since the world had nearly ended they both fell into it with enthusiasm, and each would tell you the other had suggested it because neither of them could remember why. Aziraphale might say it made eating more rewarding to know you’d worked for it. Crowley might point out the potential for creative license. Now that no one was asking anymore, they would probably both admit it was nice to have something to do together that had low stakes. It wasn’t anybody’s Work, and they could bicker about how best to cut onions or what the sauce needs without it being code and without anyone’s lives on the line. Aziraphale knew that Crowley was struggling in the wake of the Apocalypse. He was struggling too, but more abstractly, as a theological exercise in interpreting what he had witnessed in the context of the Ineffable Plan. Why have two layers of plan that seemingly contradict one another? Why let things get so close to the edge? And why put Aziraphale and Crowley, notoriously lackadaisical at their jobs, in the centre of it all? Crowley, however, seemed to be struggling on a more emotional level. Aziraphale assumed that visiting Heaven again was taking a toll on him, or the stress of almost losing everything they held dear on Earth. He was hoping that it would go away with time and some subtly administered loving care. So here they were, seated in their armchairs, each waiting for the other to say something honest.

“Can I get you anything? More wine? A record you’d like to hear?”

“Angel, may I ask you something that’s perhaps embarrassingly personal?”

“Oh Crowley, what could be embarrassing for you to ask me? I mean really, we’ve known each other for six thousand years, I’ll be surprised if it’s not something you already know the answer to. Of course, you may ask me anything.”

Crowley did his best to smile, but it was a bit too tight-lipped, and came across as though he had a bad taste in his mouth or a canker sore. He wanted to give up and change the subject but he knew it wouldn’t work.

“Aziraphale, why aren’t you in love with me?”

Aziraphale gasped, not audibly but visibly. His face telegraphed concern as if he were watching a horror film, or seeing someone frail-looking fall over. He breathed back out through his nose.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I guess I always assumed it was because you were afraid of Heaven, or you thought that it was impossible for us to be on a team, but we’ve just pulled off something much bigger than little Arrangement business together, and Heaven is no longer a factor for you. I’m having to resign myself to the possibility that you really just, well, don’t love me and I suppose I just wanted to know why, so I could sort of put it to bed, in my mind. I’m sorry, it was an inappropriate question to ask. You don’t have to answer.”

Aziraphale closed his eyes. He tried to think of what he could possibly say in this moment that wouldn’t ring hollow. He opened them again and tried to find Crowley’s eyes from behind his glasses.

“I’m glad you said something. My, that is a heavy burden to carry, isn’t it? You shouldn’t carry it alone, dear friend, even if I can understand why you might want to.” 

Crowley abruptly slid his glasses all the way up his face so his eyes weren’t visible. Not off to a great start. Aziraphale took another deep breath and tried again.

“I suppose it was always easier for me to think of us as utterly different, so different that it wouldn’t even be a sensible question to ask. I think I did this to make working against you less painful. But I’m sorry that I did, because what I saw from you on that airfield was nothing short of true heroism. You finally stood up to all of them, everyone who had wronged you, the angels who scorned you, Satan who tricked you into falling, all of them for trying to force us to participate in the destruction of our home, Crowley,  _ our _ home, the home we love. You did it and succeeded! You did it for Earth, you did it for Adam, and you did it for us. It reminded me of the kind of reckless bravery that Adam, the first Adam, showed after being cast out of Eden, brandishing a flaming sword with no fear to protect his wife and unborn child. I loved you in that moment the same way that I loved him then, with awe and reverence for the tenacity of the soul even in the face of the seemingly insurmountable. I recognize that this is not the same thing as being in love.”

Crowley threw his hands up in the air and then down again, forcefully, like he was yelling at traffic or contesting a bad referee call.

“Hang on, Crowley, I’m not done thinking!” Crowley hunched over a little, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. “I’m sorry, my dear, I shouldn’t have yelled at you in such a delicate moment. But I won’t be rushed in getting to where I’m going, because even I’m not sure yet where that is, alright? You’ll just have to bear with me. I know you always have, poor soul.” 

Aziraphale leaned back in his chair and gnawed on a cuticle. He was suddenly experiencing what he recognized from having sensed it in humans as a cigarette craving. He had never smoked a cigarette in his extremely long life. Crowley was scratching at his hands in the chair across from him. How could he have thought for so long that they were anything but halves of one thing? How could he have let Crowley sit there for God knows how long feeling this way? Stating it mattered less to him than it apparently did to Crowley, but this was no excuse. He would need to choose his words carefully.

“There was so much love in the air that day, Crowley. Adam’s love for his friends and his hometown and his fiend of a dog, Anathema and Newt’s love for each other, found unexpectedly at the end of all things. I didn’t realize until we were holding the hands of the Antichrist, standing against the tyranny of little imagination, you with your wiles and I with my sword, that our love for one another was a part of it. But once I was restored to myself and all was said and done, I couldn’t help but mark for myself that love had in fact saved the world, and that my own love was there fighting with me. Is that  _ in _ love? I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’ve ever felt what humans do for each other, except vicariously. And that’s powerful stuff indeed, even second-hand. But powerful enough to save the world? Because Crowley, I didn’t save the world so that I could keep eating mousse cakes and drinking wine. I didn’t save the world so that I wouldn’t have to fight. I may not look like it, talk like it, or act like it, but I was born to be a soldier, and it would actually be rather satisfying to strap on the old armour, in fact I was prepared for us to have to slash our way out of things at Armageddon! No, I saved the world so that I could continue to spend all my days with you, to be your Adversary, your co-conspirator, or your dearest friend, to be the one in your life, any way you’d have me. That was worth risking my life for, to me. I’ve always been more patient with authority than you have, Crowley, and I suspect that’s in part because I felt sure, and I still do, that you are part of Her plan. I love all of God’s creation, but I’m allowed to have a favorite part, and I  _ do _ , my dear. I hope that’s enough for you.”

“Of course it’s enough. I understand. This close and no closer.” Crowley let his glasses slip a little bit. His golden eyes were puffy underneath.

“We’ve been in each other’s forms before, Crowley. I’m telling you that I love you above all Creation, what could bring us closer?” He paused and looked at the demon, considering. The only thing he could come up with seemed almost too trivial to mention, but it was his best guess. He considered what that might mean for him, and decided he didn’t care if it would wipe the devastation off of Crowley’s face. “Do you mean physically? I haven’t before, but I’m happy to do it, dear boy, if that’s what you want. I don’t Lust, obviously, but I imagine I can still feel pleasure. And Adam, not knowing how we’re typically made, made his best guess and furnished me with permanent, ahem, equipment, when he gave me this body, so that saves me, at least, the, uh, the  _ effort _ .” Crowley giggled through his tears, gurgling a little bit. Something unfolded in Aziraphale’s chest at the sound. “And I did just say any way you’d have me, didn’t I?” He smiled bashfully, meeting Crowley’s eyes over his glasses. Suddenly the demon seemed to remember something and his face grew serious and apprehensive.

“Can I stay the night here? In the bookshop? I don’t want to go home, it feels dirty there. I killed someone there, a real bastard, and yeah, he was trying to kill me, but still. I’ve done a lot of tempting, tormenting, and driving to distraction, but that was actually the first time I’d killed. I’ve hated going home ever since.”

“Oh Crowley, don’t even mention it, dear.” 

As soon as Aziraphale was finishing speaking, he was enveloped entirely in Crowley’s embrace, his head on the angel’s shoulder and cold hands on his back. Aziraphale realized that the demon was weeping and he himself began to feel slightly choked up. It was rather a lot that he had just said, and while he meant every word they had felt very alien in his mouth. He buried his face in the demon’s neck, pressing softly with his lips to try to soothe him and to soothe himself. The demon sniffled.

“Are you kissing my neck? When you said you were happy to, I didn’t know you meant  _ right now _ , I think I’d like to gain some composure first.” Aziraphale pulled away.

“Oh goodness, sorry, I wasn’t trying to  _ initiate _ anything, that was just where my mouth happened to be and I wanted to kiss you, to let you know it was all alright.” 

Crowley took a step back and held open his arms.

“Well, now you can pick anywhere you’d like, angel.”

To his surprise, Aziraphale went for the temple first, softly kissing away the pressure built up in his head from crying. The gentleness of it made him sigh and sob one more time. The angel’s warm, dry hands on the sides of his face, blue eyes sparkling as they gazed on him with total adoration, Crowley saw it for the first time – reverence, just as Aziraphale had said. Awe. He was the angel’s favorite thing in a beloved universe. He closed his eyes, unable to bear it anymore, and when he did, he felt Aziraphale brush his fingers over his eyelids, leave tiny kisses beneath his eyes, soothing them. The burning sensation that he had felt behind his eyes was gone. These weren’t even miracles, he could tell, just the healing touch of such powerful divine essence. It was something he had never expected to feel again, and despite its holiness it didn’t hurt him. It felt like being made whole again from the inside out. There was no other way to describe it but divine love.

Aziraphale placed one last kiss on the demon’s forehead and finally, finally, pressed his lips to Crowley’s. He had worried that he would do it wrong, but it was as easy as anything he had ever done. Kissing Crowley was as natural as saying his own name. He held him tightly, as though the world were ending after all, as though they were in the garden and it was them with no notion of good or evil, as though the only thing he knew at all was to express everything he never had in this unschooled kiss. He swallowed Crowley’s every hedge or self-deprecation from his lips before they could form, and gave him back every assurance he had withheld for too long. He moved to Crowley’s jaw, easing tension that the demon had held so long that he forgot what it was like to be without it, and then back to the meat of his neck.

Crowley wasn’t sure whether Aziraphale had been working some spell and then stopped it, or whether this was exactly how he was supposed to feel, because his heart was racing, which was uncomfortable but completely appropriate to the situation. Damp with his tears and his beloved’s spit, he could feel every change in the air against his neck, knew where the angel would go next before he went there. This may have eliminated the element of surprise but if anything it only heightened the thrill. He had precious milliseconds to wonder if Aziraphale knew where he was most sensitive because of the time spent in his body, to shift his weight slightly in anticipation, to marvel at the depth to which he was known.

“I suspect that now you might be trying to initiate something after all, angel.”

“Who do you take me for, Crowley?” Aziraphale smiled at him. “What have I ever initiated in my life, and why would you think I would start now?”

As if he had been waiting for this cue his entire life, Crowley lifted the angel into his arms with a smoothness of motion that surprised them both.

“I really do have to do everything myself, don’t I? And you call me wily.”

“I’m not tempting, I’m – delegating!”

“Delegating? So you think you’re the boss, eh?”

“You seem to.” An angel’s grin cannot be wicked, so Aziraphale’s wasn’t.

Crowley kissed him, holding him closer to himself.

“I’m happy to do whatever you want, angel.”

“Would you mind sitting down again? I’d quite like to – forgive the crass expression, but – I’d like to blow you.”

Crowley laughed out loud, opening his mouth wide. Aziraphale frowned.

“I’m not making fun of you, darling, I just never thought I would hear a request like that come out of you!” He marched them over to the sofa at the back of the shop, set Aziraphale down in front of the sofa, and sat down. “I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but I think you’re going to have to get on your knees.”

“Would you open your shirt? I’d like to see your chest.” 

As Crowley nodded and began undoing his buttons, Aziraphale knelt in front of him, somehow really looking like he was at prayer, and not in some perverse, ironic way. His expression was as though a great honor were being bestowed on him. Crowley’s shirt dangled open, and Aziraphale placed a hand on his chest, relishing the feeling of his soft chest hair and his heartbeat.

“You still haven’t said it back.”

“Aziraphale, I love you more than all the stars, even the ones I formed myself. I have for many years and I always will.”

As though he hadn’t heard him, Aziraphale abruptly began removing Crowley’s belt. He set it beside him. He took a deep breath and undid the fly of Crowley’s trousers, when suddenly there was a hand underneath his chin guiding his face upwards.

“Did you hear me?” Crowley had taken his sunglasses off, so Aziraphale was confronted with his friendly but firm gaze. He nodded slightly, looking distracted. “Is something wrong?”

“What could be wrong? Nothing’s wrong,” the angel said, his voice absent like he was repeating a phone number to himself until he could find a pen.

He pulled slightly at the waistband of Crowley’s trousers and pants together, and Crowley obligingly shifted his weight to allow him to pull them down to his knees. Crowley wished that he saw something other than determination in Aziraphale’s face.

“Do you want to do this?”

“Crowley, you said we could do anything I wanted, I could have picked something less involved or less messy if I wanted to, I said with no prompting that this is what I want to do. I want to be this close to you. I want to do this for you. Please, let me do this for you.”

“Alright, then. I’m sorry I questioned you.”

Aziraphale eased his face towards Crowley. He was surprised more than anything else by the smell of the demon’s dick. He had expected it to smell like sweat, which it did, but instead of being an acrid smell it was sweet, almost like a hard candy that had been left in your pocket on a hot day. He was also surprised by how immediately Crowley responded to him giving it a tentative lick. He wondered if his own was that sensitive; he had only made the effort once or twice and that was just to keep up appearances while bathing; since being permanently outfitted with his genitals he hadn’t really tried anything. It had never really interested him. Now, hearing Crowley sigh even at such brief contact made him curious to find out. He opened his mouth and accepted Crowley into himself, shifting his tongue around in his mouth to accommodate him. It was all a little unwieldy, and he was very conscious of and afraid of his teeth all of a sudden. He tried to focus on breathing through his nose and keep everything as calm as possible. He felt Crowley’s thighs to either side of him and he silently thanked them for keeping him company. He hadn’t seen them since the days of ancient Greece when short togas were briefly in fashion, and with a swell of emotion he greeted them as old friends, reaching out to touch one of them. Crowley shivered and pushed further into Aziraphale’s mouth, so he left the hand there.

Crowley had been around the block a couple times in six thousand years, but it had never felt like this before. Well, with his eyes closed, it was someone giving their first blow job just kind of guessing what that was supposed to entail, but then he opened his eyes. He opened his eyes and it wasn’t someone, it was Aziraphale concentrating like he was doing brain surgery, Aziraphale with a heart-meltingly innocent look on his face that felt rather inappropriate for the situation, and it all suddenly felt new to Crowley too. He would try to focus in on how the angel was feeling and get totally distracted by the sensation when he moved. He had felt many things from his partners in the past – delight, shame, apprehension, excitement – but what Aziraphale emitted when he reached out to touch Crowley’s leg was something entirely else. It was joy, emotional joy rather than sensual pleasure, and a little sadness, too. Nostalgia! Aziraphale was somehow overwhelmed by nostalgia in the midst of this, strange fellow. And no wonder. They had so much history to sift through, to wonder how they got to this moment and how it took them so long. He put a hand in the angel’s hair, as if to say,  _ whatever it is you’re missing, we have all the time in the world to do it again _ . And as if in response, Aziraphale seemed to take heart, redoubling his efforts while nonchalantly stroking Crowley’s leg like it were a friendly old dog. It wasn’t particularly sexy, but it was comforting, and it seemed to give Aziraphale the confidence to test the parameters of what he was doing, how to move his tongue, how to move his whole mouth, what to do with his hands to elicit the reaction he was looking for. Soon Crowley knew that he was getting close, and not wanting to spring an unpleasant surprise on Aziraphale he ruffled the angel’s hair to attract his attention.

“I’m nearly ready to, you know, so unless you intend to swallow you should probably switch to using your hand.” It was only with intense concentration that Crowley managed to build such a businesslike sentence.

“What, and have to clean it out of this priceless old rug? Are you crazy?”

He gave the demon a dripping grin and returned to sucking his dick. How quickly he had shifted from being out of his depth to being exactly himself, equal parts coy and surprisingly snappy for a heavenly being. The familiar voice saying something somehow both fussy and unequivocally filthy filled Crowley with hope and a fondness that he had never had the chance to experience with someone he was involved with before. Crowley finished, reacting without registering his own reaction, thinking only that he would stop as many ends of the world as he had to if he could spend forever with the creature, heavenly yet imbued with deep humanity, that he so loved.

Crowley may not have been paying attention to what he was doing but Aziraphale was totally rapt, wishing he could have his eyes open and closed at the same time. On the one hand, he wanted to watch the demon's face as it strained to keep a hold of itself, watch it give up and fall into serenity; he wanted to see Crowley enjoy himself. On the other, Crowley's eyes were closed and it felt somehow intrusive to watch him, as though what they were doing together was still an experience that was private to him. He felt like a voyeur to an act that he was simultaneously participating in. And in any case, Aziraphale's own eyes were beginning to water from the effort of not heaving when Crowley came. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but if it had been a lot to keep track of at the beginning it was really just this side of too much at the end. He knew this did not match the game bravado he had been trying for, and he hoped that Crowley wasn't picking up on his discomfort. He wanted Crowley, at least, to experience this as pure delight. When it seemed like it was all over, he pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Well?" Aziraphale said, with all the emotion of a hairdresser asking if you liked your haircut.

Crowley wasn't going to dignify that with a response. Instead he just grabbed Aziraphale's hand and kissed it, using his other hand to stroke the back of his head. Aziraphale wiped his eyes with his other hand and sent a little smile up to his lover.

"Now that you've jumped right into the deep end for me, would you like me to do anything for you?"

"I think I need a break first. That was, you know, I hope you enjoyed it, but I need a minute. And maybe some water or something, just to sort of -"

"Get the taste out of your mouth?"

"It sounds horrid when you put it like that! But yeah, sort of."

He gave Crowley's hand a squeeze and stood up and walked towards the kitchen. Crowley sat there a moment, but couldn't really bear to watch the angel just walk out on him like that so he pulled his pants up and started after him. Aziraphale turned around, taking a sheepish sip of his water.

"It wasn't a chore, you know. Just because I wanted some water."

"Why were you sad? You were feeling nostalgic, I could sense it."

"Oh, that? I just realized it had been nearly three millennia since I had seen your legs. And quite nice legs, too, by the way. No one would complain if you wore shorts in the summer, that's all I'll say on the matter."

Crowley chuckled. What else could he do? Maybe he had expected some sort of change to come over the angel, but he was glad there wasn't one. This was the man he loved, so familiar and yet so enigmatic. He could see that Aziraphale was really trying, and he loved him for it, but he wished he didn’t have to try.

“You won’t have to wait three more if you don’t want, my love. I mean, you can have as much time as you like. I only mean to say that I’m here, whenever you’re ready.”

“Thank you, Crowley.” Aziraphale took another deliberate sip of his water, gulping awkwardly. “Will you sleep in my bed with me even if I don’t want to keep having sex tonight?”

Crowley reached for Aziraphale’s gaze with his big eyes. He gave the angel a small smile, relaxing his whole face in the hopes that he could project this relaxation onto him.

“Of course. That sounds like heaven. Well, not like  _ actual _ heaven at all, but like what people mean when they say that something sounds like heaven.” 

Crowley couldn’t help the sadness that escaped his face. Aziraphale reached for his hand.

“Would you like some water too? Before we go to bed? You look exhausted.”

“Well, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. I cried, which I hate doing, and then I got the most unexpected blow job I’ve ever had. I’m pretty knackered.”

“Was it that bad?”

“It wasn’t bad at all! I hope it doesn’t bother you that I’ve slept with people before, but if it does I hope you can take comfort in the fact that you’re the first one I’ve really loved. So that just made it different, that’s all. And then you were pretty obviously very nervous about the whole thing, I was about to ask you if you wanted to stop and then you started really going for it and I figured I had done enough double- and triple-checking.”

Aziraphale blushed. It was gorgeous.

“I had hoped you would enjoy it too much to notice. I hope it didn’t spoil it for you.”

“Not at all, angel. It made me desperately want to return the favor, but I can be patient.”

“For now?”

“For as long as it takes.”

“Can we go to bed now?”

“By all means.”

Aziraphale’s room had wooden floors with the type of giant old planks that people love but are impossible to keep clean. His bed was a full-sized metal frame with an ordinary mattress and three pillows. He didn’t have a duvet but he had a large burgundy knit blanket. There was a floor lamp in the corner and a dresser on the opposite wall. Compared with the cozy fullness of the bookshop, the bedroom was surprisingly spartan.

“I don’t actually spend much time in here. I’d always rather be in the shop, or out.”

“It’s nice. Serene.”

“Do you know, I actually knitted the blanket myself! In the 1860s. Took me two years to finish because I kept ripping it up and starting again every time I made an error, and I was learning, so I made quite a few errors. Still, I like how it turned out in the end.”

“You couldn’t just fix the mistakes with one of your famous trivial miracles?”

“I suppose there was something of the Penelopeian in the task. I was biding my time while, well, while you were gone. And it was sort of meditative, I can see why the nuns do it.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale’s face and felt it again, a similar sort of wistful sadness to earlier.

“What’s wrong, my love?”

“You thought I wouldn’t give you the holy water because I didn’t love you. That’s why you disappeared, isn’t it? How could I love you and hand you lethal means, Crowley? I know how much you struggle with it all sometimes, I couldn’t be sure you weren’t going to kill yourself with it! I was willing to upset you, to keep you safe. But my God, was it lonely without you. Where were you, anyway?”

“Asleep, mostly. ‘Fraternizing’? Was that to keep me safe too? You made it sound like we were soldiers having an illicit affair.”

“Well we were in a way, weren’t we?”

“I guess I hoped we were. But to hear you say it so formally, so clinically, and out of anger, without ever saying it tenderly –” Crowley stopped himself. “It doesn’t matter. I guess I did overreact a touch, sleeping for eighty years.”

“I regretted it constantly. I knit and unraveled and knit again and thought of nothing else.” Aziraphale swallowed, his soft palate a little sore. “Well, feel free to have a lie down. I’m going to just wash up and get into pyjamas, if you don’t mind.”

Aziraphale grabbed a pair of pyjama pants from his dresser, looked at Crowley, dug around for a t-shirt and tossed it to the demon, who was caught unawares and had to juggle it a couple times before catching it. He then walked straight out the door and into the bathroom. Crowley sat down on the bed, running his hand over the blanket. It was a work of remarkable craftsmanship, simple but so perfectly executed that it was still deeply impressive. Even after all that had been said and done in the past few weeks and, my lord, the past few hours, it still felt as though Aziraphale was running away from him, bolting out of the room at every pause in conversation. Crowley understood logically that it wasn’t just external forces holding the angel back, that years and years of behavior weren’t going to change overnight and that, as an entity whose love tended more towards the benevolent than the passionate, some things might never change, that he might always be just slightly aloof. Truth be told, he didn’t really mind, because he knew this when he fell in love with him. But it was unnerving to watch the angel spilling his soul one moment and being all business the next, to watch him waver between debauched and detached even after that bridge seemed to have been crossed. He just hoped that Aziraphale wasn’t doing all this just for him – he’d rather go back to how things were before than to spend the rest of eternity watching the angel put on an elaborate performance for his benefit and every so often see the mask slip. 

He looked at the shirt in his hand. It was a plain white t-shirt, the sort of thing that men sometimes wear under dress shirts to prevent sweating through them. He figured this was what Aziraphale meant for him to wear to bed. He took off his shoes and socks and then his trousers, leaving just his boxers. He took off his shirt and quickly put on the one he had been handed before he could be surprised by the angel returning from the bathroom. The shirt fit comfortably, if a little roomy, and it smelled like the angel, sweet and just slightly grassy. Crowley took a deep breath of it, enjoying the mixing of the smell with his own. He laid down and waited.

Aziraphale, meanwhile, was looking at himself in the mirror. It was a bold choice, he felt, wearing the pyjama bottoms with no top in front of Crowley. It was how he usually slept, when he did, and compared to what had already happened that evening it should have been nothing. But it still felt embarrassingly vulnerable – exposed, literally. He washed his face and brushed his teeth, drinking some more water as he rinsed out his mouth. He took a deep breath. He had told Crowley how much he loved him, specifically, as a part of the world and apart from it. He hadn’t meant to. He had sort of assumed it went without saying, after he had disobeyed heavenly commands directly and then lied in the face of the lords of Hell and Archangel Michael themselves in order to keep Crowley safe and in his life. It went without saying, and it was mortifying to say. But he had said it, because apparently Crowley needed to hear it. Everything else, well. He wasn’t sure whether he hoped God wasn’t watching or hoped She was. If the Host were to be believed, She’d be furious with him for so debasing himself, and with one of the Fallen no less. But if She was to be believed, (mostly) selfless acts of love were the actions She favored most, and Aziraphale had the strangest sense that She would be proud of him. 

That could be reckoned with later; Crowley was in his bedroom right now. Whatever was going to happen next was just going to happen. There was nowhere left to hide. He walked back towards his room, pausing on the threshold to look at Crowley, who didn’t hear him coming and was looking at the blanket and humming softly to himself. Aziraphale didn’t recognize the tune. It was slower and gentler than the music that Crowley usually played in the car. Aziraphale remembered the strong pull that he had felt in the shop towards the yarn he had used to make that blanket and realized, seeing them together, that it had reminded him of Crowley’s red hair. In a way, then, he had slept with Crowley many times. He had a feeling this would be much better. He looked closer at Crowley, the hair on his arms and legs, the gorgeous curves of his calves and the way that the hem of Aziraphale’s shirt rippled sweetly over his backside. All at once he understood the way that humans couldn’t stand to stop touching each other when they first fell in love. He understood it because he was feeling it. He felt a rush of energy playing against his sternum. He knew this was right. His whole body was aware of itself. 

“That’s a lovely song, what is it?”

Crowley turned his head at the sound and his brow furrowed. He closed his eyes for a moment, scrunching his brows as if in pain but smiling, closed-lipped again but contented where it was tense before. When he reopened them they scanned over Aziraphale’s body, not appraisingly but in the same spirit that Aziraphale had just done the same thing. It wasn’t embarrassing at all to Aziraphale anymore, because he saw his own desire in his lover’s eyes. If anything, it was only fair.

“You’re this gorgeous and you wear that many layers? I thought hiding your light under a bushel was strictly forbidden.”

“I like the style! And in any case, it would be highly inappropriate for me to go around like this on a daily basis, I don’t think my customers would like it very much at all.”

“I know. I like the suit. I was only coming on to you, angel.”

Crowley relished watching Aziraphale’s blush start at his cheekbones and spread out toward his ears. Aziraphale’s voice was quiet.

“As if you have to talk me into my own bed.”

Aziraphale walked up to the bed with short, nervous steps and crawled onto it. He hesitated a moment, then threw his arms around Crowley. He kissed him with gusto, bunching his hands in the back of his shirt, licking the roof of Crowley’s mouth and biting his bottom lip. Crowley barely knew how to respond. He had just talked himself into never expecting this kind of passion from the angel, and now as if to be contrary he was full of desire after all. He placed his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, and then that felt like too much distance so he wrapped his arms around the angel’s waist. He kissed back, giving himself permission to go on autopilot for a moment while he processed this new fervor. Aziraphale feinted as though he were going to kiss Crowley’s neck, but seemed to decide he couldn’t spare even a moment away from his mouth and went back to making out with him. He kissed like a desperate teenager, or someone about to go to war. He kissed like he had just invented it and was afraid he would forget how to do it in the morning. It was Crowley who finally broke away and tentatively nipped at Aziraphale’s neck. Crowley could hear the angel’s breathing thicken, so he bit again, this time in earnest, and started sucking on the area he had bitten as if to leave a mark.

“Do you want me to?”

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with eyes that were almost distraught and nodded. Crowley kept going until he did leave a mark after all, red with tightly clustered purple dots. Aziraphale just continued clinging to Crowley, trembling. Crowley reached a hand into Aziraphale’s hair and stroked the back of his head, kissing gently back up to the angel’s mouth. Aziraphale made a slight noise as their lips made contact again. All of a sudden Crowley remembered that he knew what he was doing, and he kissed Aziraphale deeply, running his tongue along the underside of the angel’s, holding him tightly and then rolling over onto him so that he was on top of the angel, one hand on his side and one at the nape of his neck. Like this, he could feel Aziraphale’s warm skin, soft but not in a meticulously cared-for way. He felt like a human man, like someone alive only for a brief, horrible, spectacular time. His shoulders were broad. He had nipples, just the regular two, Crowley thought with a smile. They had barely done anything and he was breathing like he was running a marathon. Crowley noticed that the angel was hard.

“You’ve got pyjama bottoms and I’ve got a pyjama top. Together we could be fully dressed.”

“Or totally naked.”

“You’re being awfully cheeky all of a sudden.”

Aziraphale grabbed Crowley’s ass with one hand and smiled at him like he was doing one of his ridiculous magic tricks. “No, I rather think that’s you!” 

The angel laughed at his own joke, and Crowley couldn’t help but laugh with him. If earlier the angel had been blessing him, healing him, now he was playing with him. Crowley could feel the relief, the relaxed joy that emanated from Aziraphale as opposed to the heavy emotion that had been gripping him earlier, and was sure that the angel could also feel the contentment in his heart. He wanted this moment to last forever. In part to keep the angel laughing and in part as an excuse to touch him, he sat up slightly and started to tickle his stomach. Aziraphale did a couple crackly laughs and then leaned forward and bit Crowley on the earlobe. Crowley yelped in surprise, gave Aziraphale his best  _ now you’re really in for it _ face, and started tickling the backs of his knees over the soft flannel of his pyjama pants.

“I will kick you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” 

Aziraphale looked at Crowley with so much love he would never believe it if it weren’t right in front of him. “You’re right, I wouldn’t dare.” 

Aziraphale looked drunk and happy even though they were both totally sober. Crowley pressed a gentle kiss to the angel’s sternum and looked up at him, suddenly sincere. 

“So are we going to sleep now, or?”

“That’s what I offered, so if that’s what you want I don’t mind.”

“I want whatever you want.”

“That’s not fair. I shouldn’t get to set the pace forever, my dear.” Aziraphale ran a hand through Crowley’s beautiful hair. “I love you. We don’t have to live by my fiat.”

“Aziraphale, you’ve already made me happier than I thought was still possible, and on a more mundane level I’ve already gotten off tonight. What I want now is to give you anything you want, whatever will make you feel like I already do.”

“Well, I’m already so overjoyed just to be lying here with you. I don’t know how you feel, I can only hope it’s as good as I feel. But if you’re saying that you want to get me off, then could you touch me? I think I would miss you if you were down there. I’d like to look at you.”

Crowley reached out to touch Aziraphale’s cheek and placed a soft kiss on his mouth, then scooted up so that they were face-to-face again. His hands traced the sides of the angel’s midsection down to the waistband of his pyjamas. He laid his hand there for a moment on the angel’s stomach. He started to inch his fingers under the elastic when a hand on his stopped him.

“Crowley, I’ve never done this before, I’m going to need you to walk me through it.”

“Ok, I can do that. Or we can call it a night now, if you’d prefer.”

“No, I’m curious now. Not to mention awfully hot for you, which I didn’t even think was in my repertoire, but here we are!”

“You’ve really never felt this way about anyone else, I mean even in passing?”

Aziraphale looked Crowley in the eye.

“Almost everything I feel for you I’ve never felt for anyone else, arousal is frankly the least of it. If you think this is special, you should only know how proud of you I am, when you do good, and even when you do bad in a way that is unmistakably you. I don’t think it’s something angels usually feel. It would feel horribly wrong with anyone else, I suspect. With you it will take some getting used to, and earlier was, for me, a little awkward maybe, but not wrong at all because Crowley, you are  _ it _ for me. I thought it would be something to do for your benefit, to express this to you, but I walked in and I saw you lying on my bed and now it’s my hunger too. I’m sorry it wasn’t quite there earlier, but it’s here now, and I sort of doubt it’s going anywhere.”

“Don’t be sorry. I thought I would never get to kiss you. Everything else is just extra, really. Are you ready?” 

Aziraphale nodded. Crowley slipped his hand under his pyjamas and felt around for Aziraphale’s dick. He slid his hand behind it, not so much grabbing it as cradling it in his palm. Scanning the angel’s face to gauge his reaction, Crowley moved his thumb over the head. Aziraphale closed his eyes and breathed in, holding tighter to Crowley’s shoulder with the arm that was slung over him. Crowley kept doing it, stroking progressively lower and eventually moving the rest of his hand as well.

“Wait, should I take my pants off?”

“Allow me.”

Crowley slid his hands over the angel’s hips, pushing the soft fabric down with them. Aziraphale kicked out of them from there. Crowley trailed his hand back up the inside of his thighs and Aziraphale closed his eyes in delight. Watching the angel’s face, Crowley started massaging his thigh. Aziraphale groaned and after a moment, to his surprise, moved Crowley’s hand back up. Crowley smiled.

“You got it,” he said, hoping that by acknowledging the angel’s direction he wouldn’t make him shy. And he did blush a little, but he didn’t make any move away, so Crowley kept going. Aziraphale kept meeting Crowley’s eyes as though he were looking for encouragement or for something to latch onto to ground himself. Crowley nodded and Aziraphale sighed into his touch. Crowley responded by moving his hand a little faster, varying the pressure to figure out what the angel liked best until he got a full-on moan out of him, and then trying to keep things exactly like that. Aziraphale looked beautiful, neither ashamed of his enjoyment nor self-consciously exaggerating it. Crowley could feel the angel’s pleasure building, physically in his throbbing and in the way he was subtly squirming, and metaphysically in his mind. He could count at least three places where he could feel the angel’s pulse, and it was startling, although it shouldn’t have been, that it was the same pulse everywhere. It seemed impossible that this was happening, that he was in Aziraphale’s bed, stroking him off, feeling his shaky breath against his ear. But it was happening, and Aziraphale was grinding into his hand like he finally understood that it was happening and what that meant.

And suddenly, it was happening. Aziraphale groaned like it was the only way to release pressure from his overwhelmed system, but evidently it was not the only way. In his final moment of control he willed as strongly as he could  _ not on the blanket _ , and then he came on his own stomach and Crowley’s hand. And to go from such unutterable pleasure one moment to being bereft of that sensation and covered in goo the next was almost too much to bear for the angel. He looked at Crowley, his best friend, his lover apparently, obviously, ineffably. Crowley kissed him gently on the mouth. He started to cry. Crowley disentangled himself slightly and stroked the angel’s face with his clean hand.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

“I just tried so hard, I couldn’t let it happen, and I didn’t! But all the same, just to think of it – “

“Sweetheart, what are you on about?”

“The blanket! I was so scared, I can’t ruin it,  _ profane _ it.” Aziraphale hiccuped. “I was so enjoying it all, and then I remembered and I got so worried but it was too late! I got lucky – or maybe I just performed a miracle I’ll have a lot of trouble explaining. Not that they’re checking I suppose.” He coughed out a laugh at himself. “But you, you were marvelous.”

“Are you crying at the thought that you might counterfactually have gotten semen on your blanket? Oh for pity’s sake.” They were both instantaneously clean. Aziraphale shivered at the sensation of it leaving his skin. “There now, nothing to worry about. We’ll be able to get nice and comfy, crawl under the sheets and sleep for a couple days, yeah?”

“It was you, to me, I think. That’s why I care so much. I tangled it into existence while you were gone, I’ve held it close to me a million times and never thought about why. I suppose I’ve done that to you too in a way. Besides, it’s like your hair. Look at it! I would sooner slit my throat than jizz in your hair like some kind of brute.”

Crowley chuckled. “Chivalry isn’t dead after all.” He kissed the angel on the forehead. “But if you ever do accidentally, please don’t go following through on that. I’ve got some very nice-smelling shampoo at my flat but nothing that could bring the love of my life back to me.”

“What’d you say about sleeping for a couple days?”

“Sounds about right, does it? That’s what I thought.” 

Crowley moved to tuck them in and Aziraphale pulled his legs up to accommodate him pulling the blanket and sheet over them. Aziraphale held Crowley close, nestling his head in the soft fabric of Crowley’s shirt, placid and cool over his chest. It felt as though he had always been there, as if this couldn’t possibly be the first time they’d done this. Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s head and wrapped his other arm around his waist. He wrapped his legs around one of the angel’s that had fallen between them. He felt the angel’s breath warming his chest. The pain behind his lungs was gone, lifted without bothering to say goodbye. He felt the love that Aziraphale had felt for him for so long. Maybe he hadn’t felt it before because it was there all the time. But now all the fear, and regret, and everything else that Crowley was used to feeling was waning, and as the angel drifted off to sleep on him he could focus on the love.


End file.
